'A Biochemist of the Best Type': The Contribution of Arthur Cecil Hamel Rothera to Biochemistry in Australia

Abstract

Biochemistry was an early concern of physiologists and agricultural scientists in the universities of Australia. Much more is known and recorded about such early biochemists as Osborne, Robertson and Young than about Arthur Rothera, whose contribution from 1906 to 1915 is the principal focus of this paper. Rothera was the first lecturer in biochemistry in Australia, the author of a number of significant papers and, through his ketone test, is still influential in diagnosis of diabetes today. At his death, he left biochemistry at Melbourne in new laboratories, and several students able to take his place.